


Laughing In The Battlefield

by Leni



Series: First Meetings [7]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 05:04:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16968201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: “If I get your gun back,” Neal was saying to Regina while Emma poked her tongue out at the two of them, “will you come with me against her?”





	Laughing In The Battlefield

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NropaY_OneEye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NropaY_OneEye/gifts).



Perhaps the wisest option would have been to lower his water gun and admit defeat. The glint in Emma’s eye, however, said that he wasn’t leaving her yard without a soaking - and he refused to go down without a fight. Not this time.

“For the record,” Neal said, his finger ready at the trigger, “Her Majesty was already dripping when I came upon her.”

Emma smiled, remembering Regina’s gasp at being ambushed. “I know.”

“You, I forgive.” Regina crossed her arms over her chest, lifting her chin with that superior expression that had earned her the nickname. “But  _you.”_ She glared at Neal. “If I’d already lost the game, then you didn’t need to shoot, did you?”

He grinned, glad that Emma had confiscated her weapon after she’d found her girlfriend trying to club him with it. “Oh no,” he said without shame, “I really,  _really,_  had to.”

“Grow up, Bae.”

His birth name didn’t sting with bad memories anymore, so Neal just winked and bowed to her.

Regina scoffed.

Emma used the distraction to shoot, making Neal splutter and yelp as a jet of water hit his face and then moved lower.

“Seriously?” he managed when the attack finished, shaking off the worst of the water off his hair; and then, when Emma kept evading his aim. “Come on, Em. It’s not fair to stay dry!”

“It is if I win!” Emma yelled back, still running.

*

Watching the trio from his bedroom window, unrepentant even if he’d gotten grounded for using his teacher’s credit card to buy three deluxe water guns and then forging his parents’ signatures on the invitations to this water fight, Henry smiled at his successful plot.

Perhaps he should have been more subtle and not named a family dinner with pizza and milkshakes as the prize.

In hindsight, that had been a dead giveaway.

*

“If I get your gun back,” Neal was saying to Regina while Emma poked her tongue out at the two of them, “will you come with me against her?”

Regina pursed her lips.

“She will never let you live it down,” he nudged her. “Next time you wear that outfit, she’ll snicker and just happen to offer a glass of water, and you’ll know you could’ve gotten back at her… Well?”

“Damn it. I hate it when you’re right.”

“Partners?”

Her eyebrow lifted as she stared at him. Then, slowly, “Despite my better judgement, yes.”

*

Henry laughed as a combined effort of his mom and dad ended with his mom under a spray of water, her blond hair dripping as she pulled it out of her face into a ponytail.

She was laughing. “You teamed up?  _You?”_

The other two shrugged.

“It made sense at the time,” said his father.

His mom (Regina, not Emma) rolled her eyes, but her smile was mostly fond. “It wasn’t that awful.”

His mom (Emma, not Regina) laughed again.

His parents had decreed a month without TV or comics.

Totally worth it.

 

 

The End  
01/09/18


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